While there's a hypothesis that lack of lignin-eating bacteria/fungi spurred greater coal formation at one time in earth's history, there's not much evidence su

While there's a hypothesis that lack of lignin-eating bacteria/fungi spurred greater coal formation at one time in earth's history, there's not much evidence supporting it. Rather, general conditions during the paleozoic/mesazoic periods (shifting waters, tectonic movement) likely lent themselves to accelerated coal formation as plant matter was disturbed, submerged, and interred in greater amounts than occurs today.